


The Gardeners

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV), The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Lestrade cameo, Mystrade background cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-18 00:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2329250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I could not help but find myself thinking how very much Mycroft and Red Reddington seemed to belong in the same world. So--in this story they do. Neither is...good...exactly. Neither is evil...at least, not exactly. But they know each other of old...</p><p>Now on to work on "Time and Memory," now that I've got some time to focus on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gardeners

“Hey, Red!” Lestrade raised a hand and waved at the tall, slim man standing by the Lido Café Bar beside the Serpentine in Hyde Park. “Oi, Holmes!”

The gentleman, standing neat and prim by a similarly tidy gentleman, raised his hand in return and smiled—but then quite pointedly gestured Lestrade away. When he was sure Lestrade had registered the warn-off, he gave a sober, but amiable nod.

“You’ve got a friend, then,” his associate said.

“A colleague,” Mycroft said, his voice its usual flat, unconfiding, controlled and reedy countertenor.

“Now, now…’Red.’ There’s no point trying to hide your little peccadillos from me.”

Mycroft’s brow flicked up and he gave his associate an arch look. “’Pecadillos?’ I’d hardly call DI Lestrade a ‘pecadillo.’ Our association is quite straightforward and obvious, when you have the necessary clearance. MI5 agent working with the Met, seconded to MI6 when he proved capable of coping with my brother. Hardly a mystery…Red.”

The other man smirked. “I find it endlessly amusing we share a nickname.”

“Yes—but, then, you’re so easily amused,” Mycroft replied, and brushed imaginary lint from the lapel of his Crombie overcoat.

The other man sniggered. “Well played, old friend.” He handed Mycroft a small bag containing a muffin. “Here. Enjoy.”

Mycroft pulled a face. “Dieting.”

“Surprise, surprise,” his associate said, voice sparking with irony. “Of course you’re dieting. You’re always dieting. No—it’s for the ducks.”

Mycroft pulled another face, even more dismayed. “Red, they’re only one step up from pigeons. Flying vermin. Why-ever would I want to feed the wretched things?”

“It’s expected, Red. Opposing agents in deep, clandestine espionage structures rendezvous in parks—quite often in Hyde Park—and feed the ducks as they build up their professional ties. I’m surprised you’re not more pleased—it’s traditional, and you’re nothing, if not a traditionalist. By the way—how much longer do you think you’re going to manage to hold on to that nickname…Red? You’re losing hair at a terrible rate.”

“You can hardly talk. If you weren’t wearing that ridiculous G-man hat you’d outshine the sun.” Mycroft was sullen, though—his dark auburn hair was indeed receding.

“Oh, well. Easy come, easy go. I enjoyed it while I had it,” the man said, with a too-amused smile. “And, after all, _my_ nickname doesn’t depend on the status of my hairline. Another few years and you’ll be as bald as I am—but I’ll still be Red Reddington.”

“When you’re not any of a number of other aliases.”

“Tsk, tsk. No need to get petty. I’ve been working under the one for years, now. You should know—you count on the weight of your name no less than I count on mine. We have reputations. Names to conjure with. Speaking of which, the latest Moriarty sends her best wishes.”

“Ah, yes. She who was once known as Lisette. What is she? Moriarty X?”

“I believe Moriarty XIII, actually. I grant you, tracking the early ones is a bit difficult.”

“Mmmmmm.”

“But, then, you wouldn’t know, would you? You didn’t know about them until they butted up against that baby brother of yours.”

“I generally associate with a higher caliber of criminal. Speaking of which—what _are_ you playing at with the FBI? That girl, Keen—not in your weight division at all, I would have thought.”

“Nosy man.”

Mycroft gave him a dire glance, just short of rolling his eyes. “Red! Really! This is between the two of us. No need for pretext. Two nosy men, poking and prodding at each other’s secrets. Just like old times.”

“ _Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose.”_

“Just so.” Mycroft crumbled the muffin between the black-gloved fingers of one hand, and waited while the ducks proved uncivilized in their pursuit of the crumbs. “So much remains constant, regardless of one’s efforts.”

“And, yet—think how much worse it would be, were the world not in our competent hands,” Reddington said, and tossed a handful of crumbs further down the way, spreading and thinning the mob of ducks that huddled at their well-shod feet.

They were two of a kind, though no one would have easily mistaken them. Mycroft was a good three inches taller, and somewhat the more slender, though both men knew how hard he had to work to maintain that slight edge. Each was exquisitely dressed, in his own style and manner: Mycroft unmistakably British, in a gorgeous charcoal pinstripe business suit with a matching waistcoat bedecked with a double-arch of watch-chain draping from one side of his body to the other. He wore a trim Crombie overcoat of timeless elegance—so timeless that it was something of a joke that the most recent regeneration of the BBC’s Doctor Who was garbed in a similar coat—equally trim and clean-lined, if somewhat bolder in its crimson lining. He carried an umbrella.

Reddington was no less elegantly turned out, though with a style and manner as American as Mycroft’s sartorial choices were British. Indeed, Reddington’s clothing was just short of a modernized caricature of the old G-man splendor of the FBI’s glory days, when men still wore three-piece suits and black fedoras. He had a waistcoat that would have sniggered out loud if anyone had brought a pocket-watch near it, His trenchcoat was of glorious, dramatic cut, with a high, turn-up collar that would have put even Sherlock Holmes’ Belstaff on alert. Here in the park he wore a pair of sunglasses, completing his professional G-man look.

The question, Mycroft thought with a smile, was whether Red was a G-man….or not.

If he was a G-man, he was under such deep cover it would take a genius to know.

Of course, Mycroft was a genius.

“We’ve been having trouble with the Maylasian madrasas,” he said, almost absently. “I’ve had a word with Amar.”

“Mmmm. I’ll send word to Fatima. She’ll send Amar…a little reminder.”

“No need to put her out, if she’s busy.”

“For you? Not a problem. But—I could use a favor in return.”

“When could you not?”

“Tsk. Don’t get catty. I’ve been dealing with some factions that are giving me trouble. I’ve got my leverage in the States coming into line. Can I count on you, now that little dust-up over Scots Independence is out of the way?”

“I should think so. If nothing else, Cameron’s going to provide superb distraction as he tries to deal with the aftermath.”

Reddington looked curiously at his companion, cocking his head to look up the three inches that separated them in height. “Do you never think of having me, oh…assassinated, rather than lending your support?”

Mycroft smirked. “Good heavens, no. How unthrifty. No—you’re far too valuable an associate, my dear friend. And your notion of righteousness is too like my own.”

Red’s eyes were cool, as he assessed the other man. At last he grunted—an ambiguous sound, but on the whole a sound of agreement. “Not everyone concedes I’m civilized,” he said.

“I didn’t say that,” Mycroft said, then smiled. It was a terrifying expression, compounded of ruthlessness and passion. “I’m not civilized in the least, any more than you. We are, however, the conditions without which civilization cannot prosper. Between us, we foster an environment conducive to civilization.”

Reddington smiled back, his own expression no less terrifying. “Ah, yes. I’d forgotten for a moment your thesis. No fertilizer not made of blood, or bone, or bullshit.”

Mycroft shrugged, and dusted the last of the crumbs from his gloved fingers. “Oh, there are others. But in the end, blood and bone and bullshit do seem to give the best results.” He stretched, and settled his hand firmly over the curve of his umbrella, bringing it into play, ready to use as a walking stick. “Speaking of which, I believe you won’t be hearing from Elena again.”

“She’s…retired?”

“Taken up gardening….as it were.”

“I’m sure it will prove a fertile endeavor.”

“Quite.”

Reddington considered the state of the garden if Elena were indeed no longer above ground, but below. He nodded, and smiled. “I will owe you, friend.”

Mycroft nodded. “Yes. But who keeps count?”

Both of them, of course. Both kept close count. But really, only for the competitive rush. They both worked in the same garden, accomplishing the same goals…and if Reddington was night’s master and Mycroft the daytime devil? Well…

The garden they tended was the better for each one’s attention, and both of them knew it.

Mycroft said, “My associate is getting restive. I think he was hoping to drag me out for coffee.”

“Lucky you,” Reddington said. “Me, I’m back to the States.”

“Ta, then.”

“Yeah, sure. You take care, now, right?”

“As always,” Mycroft said, and held out his hand.

The two masters of God’s garden shook hands and walked away, leaving only the ducks, who wished there had been more muffins.


End file.
